While conceding that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are political-dynasty candidates, liberal journalist Jonathan Alter explained on Wednesday's Hardball why he didn't see a one-for-one equivalency between the two. It boils down to this in Alter's mind: Hillary Clinton is a woman and Jeb Bush is, God bless him, a decent man but one of mediocre intellect.
While the Daily Beast columnist didn't directly use the term to describe the former first lady, he implied by contrast with Jeb Bush that Hillary is "enormously gifted" as a stateswoman:
MSNBC
Hardball
March 18, 2015
JONATHAN ALTER: The bottom line is, we're not a banana republic. You know, this idea that we have these dynasties it's troubling on the Democratic side with the Clintons. But with the Bushes, we're not talking about sort of history making with the first woman president, potentially. We're talking about three people from a same family who are not -- no offense to all of them -- but they're not, you know, enormously gifted Americans. They are decent public servants. You might disagree with them, but they are sort of in the broad middle range of American political families.
So the idea, that, as Barbara Bush said herself, that out of more than 300 million Americans, we have to go again to the same family, it doesn't sit well with a lot of people.
Two points might be noted in rebuttal had guest host Steve Kornacki brought on a duly combative Republican panelist -- instead of former Giuliani staffer Mike Paul. First, for all intents and purposes, the Democratic Party has put all its eggs in the Hillary Clinton basket, whereas Republicans have a number of credible candidates that can excite the base and have a chance of winning over swing voters. Democrats are far more reliant on a political dynasty than are Republicans.
Secondly, whatever you think of Jeb Bush, he did govern one of the nation's most populous states for eight years and has a track record of success in implementing his agenda as governor. What's more, while Jeb has been taking flak for policy disagreements with folks to his right in the GOP, he is standing his ground, taking fire, and answering questions.
Contrast that with Hillary Clinton, who dodges press and public scrutiny as much as she can and who has no foreign policy successes to speak of as Obama's secretary of state -- unless you count her frequent-flier miles. The now-infamous "reset button" with Russia and the disastrous failed-state aftermath of post-Qadhafi Libya are certainly two huge black marks against her record as the nation's top diplomat, arguably NOT the hallmark of an "enormously gifted" stateswoman.
